While most economists accept the desirability of expansion of deficits over the short term there are a number of theoretical arguments that lead to the conclusion that higher government debt ratios might depress growth or lead to national insolvency. These have been further ?strengthened?...

Open to all private companies, the CICE is equal to 6% of payroll, excluding employer contributions, for wages between 1 and 2.5 SMIC. Representing 20 billion, its funding will be based half on reduction on public expenditures and half on increase of taxes (a reform of VAT from 1 January 2014...

This paper empirically investigates the interplay between economic performance and policies in OECD countries. Macroeconomic theory focuses on supply policies as a key determinant of country?s economic performance. Aggregate demand can play a role only in the short-run. This view rests on the...

The main purpose of this paper is to understand the course of macroeconomic policy in Europe in the light of several theories which have shown that it was barely adapted to the different shocks that have hinted the European economy in the last two decades. As a result, the performance of the EU...

In this contribution, we present an assessment, in terms of growth, employment and competitiveness, of the European Union Member States RTD policies in late 2004, the National Action Plans (NAP). The assessment in this paper is based on the results of a detailed macro-econometric model NEMESIS...

This paper reviews the debate on the Stability and Growth Pact. Both empirical and theoretical arguments in favour of the Pact are weak, to warrant a different and plausible (even if extreme) hypothesis: We suggest the view that the Stability Pact is a public social norm, obeyed by countries...

This paper evaluates the strength of automatic fiscal stabilizers in European countries by applying to the EU countries Taylor (2000)?'s methodology, which relates the budget balance to the output gap and the structural budget balance. Estimates are provided for the EU and for each of the EU...

We specify an open-economy version of a two-region New Keynesian model for EMU and demonstrate that the result on the unsustainability of the euro with ever-mounting inflation differentials by Wickens (2007) does not hold in general. Strong fiscal consolidation and far-reaching successful...